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DIONYSUS AND HIS DOPPELGÂNGERS IN JOHN LYDUS We get this enigmatic statement after a series of mythical allegories. The sentence depends on the predicate poiousin, whose first object is auton, and the second objects are Dithyrambon kai Dimétora. The phrase ton dyo proodous lachonta is an apposition, which probably belongs not only to the term Dimétora, but maybe to Dithyrambon as well; so it is true for both that they have these two proodoi—whatever the meaning of the latter is. My arguments are not grammatical, but etymological: we can suppose that Lydos interpreted the Di- element in the case of both words as “two,” which is true for Dimetör, but false in the case of Dithyrambus. Following Lydus’ logic, Dithyrambos should have the meaning of “having two gates or doors”—in Greek, only this word and thyrsus begin with thyr-.’ This interpretation of Dithyrambos as “having two gates” must have seemed plausible to Lydus, because, as we will see, Lydus is actually speaking about two gates, namely the “gates of the sky.” The meaning of the phrase ton dyo proodous lachonta is “he who has share in two proodoi.” According to the Liddel—Scott dictionary, proodos means: going on, advance, progress, appearance in public, procession, proceeding forth, emanation.‘ As a first approach, we can accept the meaning “procession”; however, without understanding the precise and definitive meaning of the whole sentence, we still do not know how to understand this procession—I mean, what kind of procession or whose procession it is. The phrase is followed by two further appositions, which define or at least specify these two proodoi: a) the first “procession” is an eastern procession towards the south and in winter; b) the second procession is the northern procession towards the west and in summer. As far as I know, nobody has tried to find an explanation for this disturbing passage—there is no annotated edition of the text and there are almost no translations of it into modern languages, so scholars have not been compelled to solve this riddle. The only apparent issue is that the sentence refers somehow to the directions ofthe sky. What we read in the textis a short hint ata philosophical or theological concept unknown from other sources. We can assume that this concept involved astrology, which could provide a terminological framework combining the directions of the sky and seasons. Dionysus.” http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Lydus/4/March*.html accessed on 25 February 2016 (trans. Mischa Hooker). The translation of A. Bandy is as follows: “They represent him as the son of Semele hidden under the earth and coming forth through Hermes, that is, the generative principle, and as being nurtured in the thigh of Zeus, that is to say, hidden in the covert places of the world, and as Dithyrambos and Dimeter [sic!], who has been allotted two progressions, the eastern one to the south in winter but the northern one to the west in summer. And these are the facts about Dionysus.” (Bandy, Lydus On Months, 227-229.) ? Bandy also interpreted it as “two doors”, cf. Bandy, Lydus On Months, 229 n. 143. 8 Liddel-Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. proodos. +. Se Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 95 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:15
